British guy buys Boeing 737 fuselage to bury in his garden as a doomsday bunker
February 23, 2026
A designer and content creator is transforming a former bmibaby Boeing 737 fuselage section, which will be buried in his garden and used as an underground bunker.
The aircraft, which first flew in 1994, carried thousands of passengers during its lifetime and will form just part of a complex of underground buildings, the transformation of which is being documented via a YouTube channel.
Boeing 737 becomes an unground bunker space
The project is the brainchild of 44-year-old Dave Billings, a content creator and engineer from Hilton in Derbyshire. Billings has already created a network of underground rooms and tunnels at his home, which he has documented on his YouTube channel under the username of ‘Tornado Dave’.
The Boeing 737 fuselage is to form part of that network, with access to the plane via a well shaft which will appear at ground level through a vintage red UK telephone box.
Billings bought the fuselage section from a scrap metal merchant in Leicestershire who had purchased the aircraft when it was retired from service in 2012.
The plane, a Boeing 737-500 registered as G-BVKB when still flying, had been cut up previously, with the front section becoming a camper trailer owned by a private individual in Lancashire.
Billings bought the upper part of the rear fuselage section from the wing root to the tail, but with the horizontal and vertical stabilisers already removed. The rear section does, however, still include the galley and toilet from the aircraft’s passenger days.
Boeing 737 fuselage purchased for just £4,000
As reported by the BBC, Billings first spotted the fuselage section on Facebook Marketplace and placed an offer for £4,000 ($5,400) for the section. He told the BBC that as soon as he saw it, he instantaneously knew he had to have it for his “fallout bunker”, which he is constructing in his back garden.
While the network of underground structures still requires planning permission from his local authority, as it will be built underground, Billings does not see that as an issue.
While Billings bought the fuselage section as a bare shell, he remains keen to reintroduce some features synonymous with passenger aircraft to the fuselage, including the galley and toilet.
He is hoping that his seven-year-old son, who he describes as an aviation enthusiast, will be able to use the 737 bunker for his next birthday party. According to Billings, his wife took a little longer to convince into buying the fuselage section, although he now says that she is “okay about it”.
The 737 fuselage becomes a YouTube star
Billings decided to set up his own YouTube channel after he worked on a television programme with presenter and former motorcycle racer Guy Martin, who drove one of Dave’s modified Land Rovers.
His YouTube channel, which has been running since 2021, now has over 276,000 subscribers and gains around 10,000 new followers each month.
The underground bunker project, which is linked to his house via a subterranean tunnel which Billings himself dug by hand, is just one of several projects that Billings has lined up for his channel.
While unwilling to elaborate on the nature of those projects, Billings advised the BBC to “watch this space”.
The bmibaby Boeing 737-500 that’s becoming a bunker
According to Planespotters.net, G-BVKB was originally built for SAS Scandinavian Airlines but was never delivered to that carrier.
Instead, the plane found its way to partner airline British Midland Airways in March 1994 to be flown on UK domestic and European short-haul routes with 117 seats.
On 1 February 2001, British Midland rebranded as bmi British Midland, and the aircraft transferred to the newly renamed carrier while retaining the same registration.
With that carrier establishing its new low-cost offshoot bmibaby in November 2002, G-BVKB transferred across, but having its interior reconfigured into a high-density all-economy layout of 131 seats.
The aircraft served with bmibaby until September 2012, operating from the budget airline’s bases at East Midlands (EMA), Manchester (MAN) and Cardiff (CWL).
However, having sustained heavy losses against the likes of easyJet and Ryanair, the airline shut down at the end of summer 2012.
G-BVKB was subsequently placed in storage at Norwich Airport (NWI) before being purchased for spare parts by Swiss-based aircraft trader Midair. It was flown to Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire in 2013, where it was parted out, and its fuselage was cut into sections.
Like many former airliners that find their way to a second life as coffee shops, restaurants and Airbnb accommodations, it would appear that G-BVKB (or at least, part of it) will join those ranks. Sadly, though, being underground, it is likely that very few will ever get to see it in its new home.
Featured image: Pieter van Marion / Wikimedia Commons
